Title: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Type of Game: Action-Adventure, Psychological Horror
Developer: Ninja Theory
Publisher: Ninja Theory
Released: August 8, 2017
Platforms Available: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Platform Reviewed: PlayStation 4
Level of Maturity: Mature 16+
Reading Time: 10 minutes

The Psychotic Ballet of Senua

Face painted with battle paint, anger, and determination in her eyes. But don’t be fooled. Senua, the protagonist of Ninja Theory’s Massacre, not only uses war paint to show her will to kill, but she’s also probably trying to hide her darkness and banish the whispering demons behind it, in vain. Hellblade is, in fact, a properly psychotic action flick where you’re never sure if there’s a real threat after your neck or the fruits of the main character’s twisted mind. Anyone expecting pure carnage along the lines of Devil May Cry, however, would be mistaken. Of course, you’ll see situations where soul-searching goes by the wayside and swords stabbed into heads come into play, too. Still, Hellblade certainly can’t claim to be classic action-packed fare. It is more of a psychological study. Hellblade is a ballad of madness dressed up in a damn engaging coat that occasionally strays into the field of unadulterated horror.

Descent into Norse Hell: Through Senua’s Psyche

Senua ventures into the underworld of Norse mythology to save a beloved soul. The apparent main storyline, however, is a background melody to the whole orchestra. Instead, the story is more about dealing with one’s own fears, struggling with fading mental health, and reflecting on how incredibly little it takes for the human mind to slip into a spiral of hopelessness and damnation. In other words, the main storyline here is Senua herself. But when the entire play hinges on the solo performance of a single character, a girl who has been seeing into other worlds since she was a little girl (and it’s not a pretty sight), she needs special attention. And that’s precisely what the creators have done. The foundation is an incredibly detailed and elaborate model that must have been created by someone who was perhaps born with a manual in hand. On top of that, add facial expressions that even the guys from Naughty Dog would be ashamed of with their Uncharted 4 or The Last of Us Part II, games that can rightly be considered the definition of technical excellence in the gaming industry for their time.
No need to mention further the incredible Red Dead Redemption 2 (incidentally, a few days ago, we released a gallery of my last playthrough of this beautiful game), but back to the point of why we’re here before I start going into detail and my review of a Nordic adventure becomes an essay on the wild west…

Melina Juergens: The Virtuoso of Madness

But all of this would have been a dead “primer” for Hellblade if the heroine hadn’t been breathed life into in a riveting way by Melina Juergens. She may have worked as a video editor at Ninja Theory during the game’s development. Still, after playing Hellblade, one can’t help wondering if she’s accidentally missed her calling. Senua transforms into a completely believable, authentic human being through her performance. It’s very hard not to like her, not to sympathize with her, not to experience her hardships. It’s no surprise that most of the story’s cutscenes focus on Senua, occupying her from different angles and giving space to Melina’s acting, but that’s not a criticism, quite the opposite. Having managed to create such an exciting and beautiful character, it would be an eternal shame not to put her to such great use. Ninja Theory could write textbooks on handling mental illness, translating it into atmosphere, game design, and gameplay elements. They’ve succeeded like few before. The intense yet icy fear that paralyzes life, the voices of non-existent beings that you can hear through Senua, the visual depiction of real psychotic hallucinations that the developers worked with psychiatrists and sick people to create – all of this uniquely intersects on screen, delivering an oppressive and compelling experience. The developers recommend playing with headphones, which I can’t help but agree on my part, as the game very often works with 3D sound.

The Art of Psychological Environments

Overall – the setting, mood, atmosphere, and craftsmanship are phenomenal. For these positives alone, the game deserves an honest recommendation. Think back to Devil May Cry – especially in the later levels, the developers made it clear that they are downright good at psychological environments. In moments when you’re not sneaking around with your heart in your pants with some fictional vision, the game serves up a fairly classic pattern of alternating action passages and puzzles with the environment. While the puzzles aren’t particularly complex, they often build to some enjoyable punchlines by working with alternating worlds, adjusting reality before your eyes, and finding the hidden shapes of Norse runes. They may not wholly satisfy avid solvers, but they give you a better view of the beautiful setting, and that is the point.

The Paradox of Beautiful yet Shallow Combat

And then it comes to action. The pulsing Darkness materializes in the form of warrior spirits. The semi-demonic Vikings are properly terrifying and formidable to behold, in short, enemies as they should be. You’ll gather up the fragile remnants of your and Senua’s courage and go out to meet them… …and they’re grabbing at you like straw men. That’s really the only complaint I have with the game. The fights are technically well played, no doubt about it. Everything is slick and smooth; the sword dance moves build on each other like a real ballet, and Senua goes from offense to defense and back with lightning grace, quickly but naturally. Inner voices warn fearfully of a blow going to the back, scream in pain and fear when an enemy knocks you down, and so on. The battles, by the way, like the whole game, are an audiovisual feast. They’re too simple and straightforward in terms of gameplay. The combat system, while visually stunning, needs more depth and complexity than many action-adventure games offer, which may disappoint some players.

Atmosphere of Local Nord

The desire not to hurt the carefully built atmosphere, not to pull the player immersed in the local world back above the surface, is apparent. You won’t find any interface here at all, as it could be distracting. The absence of auxiliary indicators may be the reason why the developers didn’t want to go overboard with the difficulty, only that they managed the opposite extreme. Most of the battles can be solved by pressing a single attack and the occasional dodge, during which Senua is invulnerable, so it doesn’t matter which side you perform it on. The pinnacle of the tactic is to kick the enemy with your shield first before you start slashing furiously with your sword. The icing on the cake of the whole negative side of things is then put on by the unnecessarily overpowered focus mode, which stops time, is virtually impossible to die in, charges excessively fast, and takes far too long. The combat system offers more combos and attacks than one might initially think. There’s no list or explanations, so you’ll have to figure them out on your own, but the bottom line is that you can spice up the fight with your own efforts. Combine lunges as much as possible, even though it’s not really necessary, deliberately not using slow motion, and so on. The battles are then pure bliss to look at and listen to; the enjoyment of the dynamics and rhythm of the battle dance is great but lacking in adrenaline. The joy of victory. Tactical depth. This is best illustrated by the fact that I first played through the game on the medium difficulty it offers and rarely managed to die during combat.

The Guttural Symphony: When Music Trumps Gameplay

On the other hand, there would be honorable exceptions where the combat would cause goosebumps. These are not so much the fault of the game design, however, but the music. For a few of the more important conflicts are accompanied by guttural Nordic folk that whip up the already immense sensory pleasure to an unreal level. It’s still a triumph of form over content, but if you like, say, Wardrun, add a point to your rating. And speaking of numbers – to have Hellblade’s complexity, difficulty, and variety of combat system from, say, the oft-mentioned DmC, it would be somewhere between a nine and a ten for everyone else without blinking an eye.

Technological Triumph on Aging Hardware

Technically, the game is in order. On the basic PlayStation 4 FAT model, it consistently maintained 30 frames per second, which is admirable given the game’s high level of detail, and the developers have clearly put effort into optimization, something that not everyone can claim for many years. Furthermore, I encountered a few minor bugs, but nothing worth mentioning, as they occurred so rarely that it’s easy to simply wave them off.

Simplicity and Brilliance

Before the final verdict, I’d quickly return to the mentioned perhaps too simple combat. Don’t take it so badly from me. Despite the reservations about the visually beautiful but easy and not very deep battles, I thoroughly enjoyed the game from the first seconds to the final credits (which lasted about eight hours). This is mainly thanks to the excellent atmosphere, environment, and absolutely unrivaled handling of the theme. The whole experience is then enhanced by audiovisual beauty and a character so excellently crafted (both in appearance and internally) that one’s jaw drops effortlessly. Hellblade is an excellent, emotionally charged poem about real and imagined darkness inside people. Unique, fresh, beautiful, and terrifying. Play it. I recommend it.

End of Psycho Nord

Norse mythology mixed with a ticket to human madness provides the basis for the creation of a dark, captivating mood. The game stands on exploring fear, anxiety, and on an amazing main character, or rather the excellent acting performance of her portrayer. The sophistication and depth of the combat system lags a bit, but the rest of the game is an unconventional delight that is definitely worth buying, which cannot be said about the sequel that only repeated already used, albeit once good ideas with minimal innovations. However, you can read more about that in my previous review of that second part.

Where to Buy Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Steam (PC): Available for $29.99. You can purchase it directly from Steam.

Xbox Store (Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S): Available for $2.99 now, but normaly 29.99. Or included in Game Pass. Check it out on the Xbox Store.

Nintendo Shop (Switch): Available for $29.99. Purchase it from the Nintendo Shop.

PlayStation Store (PS4, PS5): Available for $29.99. You can find it on the PlayStation Store.

Official Page: Visit the official Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice page for more information.

Subreddit: Join the discussion on the Hellblade Subreddit.

The post Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – Excellent Nordic Nightmare appeared first on WePlayGames.net: Home for Top Gamers.

Title: The Town of Light
Type of Game: Psychological Horror, Adventure
Developer: LKA
Publisher: Wired Productions
Released: February 26, 2016
Platforms Available: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Platform Reviewed: PlayStation 4
Level of Maturity: Mature 17+
Reading Time: 7 minutes

Not What You’d Expect

The Town of Light seemed like a classic horror exploration adventure game from the very beginning. Still, the first few minutes were very deceiving, and the game is much more of a drama and a trip into the protagonist’s own past. So don’t expect heart attacks or a classic ghost story. The Town of Light builds tension with its story.

A Grim Blast from the Past

The entire game is set in the present day. Still, every sliver of the story harkens back to the 1930s to 1940s and a sanatorium located near the Italian town of Volterra. The sanatorium was used to accommodate the mentally ill. However, more than 70 years ago, the treatment methods were quite different. The sanatorium was full of pain, suffering, and injustice, and whoever was declared mentally ill at that time ceased to exist as a human being and was deprived not only of their rights but also of personal freedom. This was also the case for Renee, a girl of only 16, who ended up there because of family strife – but the story’s background is more complex. You can taste it in the form of the girl’s diary before playing. It didn’t take long for this place to take the most important things from Renée – youth, humanity, but also a girl’s innocence.

Back to Where It All Went Wrong

Being thrown into the story works brilliantly, and when the adult Renée returns to the crime scene, I found myself staring at the screen with my mouth open. The entry was strong, and some moments were so interesting. When you add in the mental breakdown and the hint of schizophrenia expressed by the main character’s dialogue, the real goosebumps have already set in. What actually happened, and who is Reneé after all these years? Curiosity drove me constantly forward and the reason I kept going, finger jammed into the controller stick. The ending didn’t leave you waiting for long – the last pieces of the branching and election-influenced story fall into place after some 4 hours. The hardly influential bitter ending then raises more questions, but it’s not bad. The story aspect of the game may bring to mind some clichés, but as a whole, I have little to fault it for and can only recommend it. Unfortunately, however, it’s more or less downhill from there.

Rough Around the Edges

From a technical standpoint, the game looks solid by the standards from which it sprang. However, I still encountered several bouncing objects, a few minor bugs, and annoying memory leaks and frame rate drops. On top of that, there was also the game’s poor dubbing and generally unconvincing audio. In short, the fault was not with my admittedly ancient PlayStation 4 but with the optimization as far as the first half of my criticism of the technical side of the game so far is concerned. On the other hand, the game’s environments provided a number of pleasing details in the form of ants running on the walls or fluorescent lights on the ceilings that had to be warmed up before they could be fully lit. I was also pleased with the reasonably credible treatment of the real-life prototype, which I watched in retrospect after playing the game out of curiosity on the Internet.

A Slow Walk Through History

Another shortcoming is definitely the pace of the game. The player character is far too slow in most passages, and it feels like the length of the game is artificially stretched by the character’s slow movement. Add to that the fact that the developers send you back and forth over and over again, with Renee gradually recalling a series of events in different corners of the sanatorium. Unsurprisingly, the very next event is usually at the other end of the game map. The game sends you where the sun doesn’t shine over and over again, and whether you want it to or not, the story begins to suffer. So that aforementioned squeezed finger on the forward lever suddenly signifies not only a desire to explore what awaits you next but also a wish: “May I finally be there, dammit!” And the promise that something interesting would be around the corner. It’s not just a silly joke when this title was initially created as a virtual tour, and the decision to make it a game came later.

A Story Worth Telling, Despite the Bumps

Fortunately, each successive corner provides another interesting piece of narrative. And even though the game has its obvious technical and gameplay flaws, and you will get lost more than once during such a tour, it’s still worth the wait. The Italian developers took on a fascinating topic and went on to think about how medical practice was conducted in mental institutions in the first half of the twentieth century. It’s not a pretty visit, even uninteresting from a gameplay point of view. Still, the narrative and Renee’s words thankfully pull the game out of a possible sub-par state. It is because of this aspect of the game that I would recommend The Town of Light, but I would like to warn that it is definitely redeemed by something. This time, The target audience will be even narrower than usual for other games I’ve reviewed for this site so far, which is something to consider before buying this game to see if you belong in that group.

The Bottom Line

The Town of Light takes you on a journey through the history of an Italian sanatorium in the first half of the twentieth century. It offers a great story and extensive lore of the setting, but its potential could be better in a not-so-compelling production design and an overall weak technical aspect. Those who are fans of a good script and story will find something to like, but those who want something more from every aspect of the game might as well go a little further afield.

Where to Buy The Town of Light

Steam (PC): Available for $19.99. You can purchase it directly from Steam.

Xbox Store (Xbox One): Available for $19.99. Check it out on the Xbox Store.

PlayStation Store (PS4): Available for $19.99. You can find it on the PlayStation Store.

Nintendo Shop (Switch): Available for $9.99. Purchase it from the Nintendo Shop.

Official Page: Visit the official The Town of Light page for more information.

The post The Town of Light: A Hard Look at Mental Health’s Ugly Past appeared first on WePlayGames.net: Home for Top Gamers.